All posts in: Taiwan

25 Dec 2020

Blog Roundup

  • The 40 Best K-pop Songs of 2020 [Paper Mag]
  • The Year Instagram Became Facebook [The Verge]
  • Some Cities Will Pay You $10,000 to Relocate [NPR]
  • The Missed “Magical Negro” Trope in “The Queen’s Gambit” [Bitch Media]
  • Steve Yuen on the Honesty of ‘Minari’ and His Eclectic Career [Variety]
  • Meet Pdogg, the Musical Dynamo Helping Shape BTS’s Greatest Hits [Fast Company]
  • Your State’s COVID-19 Epidemic, Explained in 4 Maps [Vox]
  • The 100 Best Songs of 2020 [Pitchfork]
  • The Best K-Pop Moments of 2020 [Teen Vogue]
  • 10 Remote Airbnbs As Stunning As They Are Secluded [Architectural Digest]
  • ‘The Bachelorette’ Stylist Shares How the Fashion Came Together for this Unprecedented Season [Fashionista]
  • The Journalist and the Pharma Bro [Elle]
  • Why Dave Chapelle Doesn’t Want You to Stream Chapelle’s Show [Vox]
  • Best House of 2020 [Arch Daily]
  • My Unusually Normal Life in Taiwan Amid the Global Pandemic [Bloomberg]
01 Aug 2020

Wansho Laundry’s Owners

A Taiwanese couple is making headlines this week after finding a creative way to recycle the clothes left behind at their laundromat. The owners, Chang Wan-Ji and Hsu Sho-er have collected the belongings that people accidentally leave and turn them into wearable outfits. Last month, their grandson Chang Reef started sharing their photos on the internet modeling these outfits and they’ve become a new sensation. With only 23 posts so far, their [Instagram] is quickly becoming a hit. Honestly, are these not the coolest grandparents you’ve ever seen?

[Source]

14 Jul 2020

Taiwan’s Wooden Orb with LED Lights

It was coincidental that I was having withdrawals this week thinking about last year’s trip to Taiwan. When I came across this post on [Colossal] I knew that it was serendipitous. Created for this year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival, artist Ling-Li Tseng crafted an installation that is “a whispering between human(s) and nature.” Located in the forest of Houli, “The Search of the Glow” is a wooden sphere dressed in LED lights. Instead of being your standard spherical shape, the pieces are a series of connected ovals.

At night, the sphere lights up the space of the forest, while in the daytime mist or fog, it appears to give a more subtle glow.

[Source]

23 Nov 2019

Angel and Katie Take Taipei!

Even though I’ve been back from this trip for six months, I still remember it like it was yesterday. I’ve been working full time for years, but would you believe this was the first vacation I’ve ever taken that was a week+ and that wasn’t related to a wedding? I’m slightly embarrassed that I let this get out of hand. Friends of mine take these sorts of trips once a quarter or twice a year even! It was Angel’s pick to go to Taipei, but I’d only been to Asia once before so spending more time there at all was appealing to me.

There was quite a bit of planning that went into this beforehand – true to our personalities, but the plan wasn’t followed exactly once we got there. Flights, accommodations, and a trip out of the city for a day were our priorities. Everything else could be done on the fly! The planner in me also crafted us a spreadsheet to track our whereabouts every day. I told myself that I would go back after the trip to fill in exactly everything we ended up doing, but that didn’t happen! We were also lucky enough to have our trip overlap with my friend Jac and her husband’s. The two of them have been there plenty of times before so navigating the city with them and going to their favorite spots were the best part of the trip. It felt like we were living like locals when we were with them!

Where we stayed: Da’an District

We honestly could not have picked a better neighborhood. Right outside our front door were three coffee shops – two of which we went to almost every day. There were plenty of restaurants down every street so we were never going to go hungry. Even if we never left Da’an, there was no shortage of things to see, shop, and eat. Since we were out and about frequently, accommodations didn’t need to be lavish. Our Airbnb ended up being $23 a night USD. Aside from killing something resembling a cockroach one night, this was a steal. It’s not like Angel could get me to stay in a hostel anyway!

What we ate: everything

Not only is the food in Taipei fairly simple and inexpensive, it’s also delicious. Our meals were what Angel and I looked forward to the most every day and I’d say we did a good job of remaining balanced. The key was to eat light for every meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) so that we could pack in more. We also made it a point to share everything instead of getting our own individual meals. This way we get to try more stuff and we waste less. Just blocks from our apartment was a stand for green onion pancakes. Nearly every guide we read online told us this was the spot. We ate here twice and even made it our breakfast on-the-go one morning. There is always a line for it and you can have add on’s like corn, meat, etc.

Read more “Angel and Katie Take Taipei!”
18 Sep 2014

A Very Chill Bunny

How adorbs is this v. chill bunny hanging out in Taiwan. The installation was made to be a giant bunny looking up at the sky and was designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. Hofman, typically famous for his giant animal character installations created this bunny based on an East Asian folklore about a bunny who lives on the moon.

Read more “A Very Chill Bunny”

26 Sep 2013

Hello Kitty Beer

Currently only being sold in Taiwan, Hello Kitty beer looks much more like a can of pop than an alcoholic beverage, which is probably why we weren’t surprised when we found out that it is a concoction of a fruit juice and beer cocktail. C’mon, did we really think it would be comparable to an IPA? It’s Hello Kitty, after all! With the beer being 2.5% alcohol, it’s unlikely that you will obtain anything more than a small buzz, but girls around the world will surely flock towards this drink in Taiwan – especially Hello Kitty fans.

One of my favorite sushi restaurants back in Seattle – Momiji – actually serves up a Hello Kitty cocktail and I like to imagine that it tastes a little bit like this without the rocks.

[Source]

22 Oct 2009

100 French Kisses

Yang Ya-Ching is participating in an original project. One that I happen to be a little jealous of actually. She is a young girl from Taiwan who is currently studying abroad in Paris. Not only is she hitting the books, she is also kissing men. Her challenge was this: Can she kiss 100 Parisian men?

After reading that line, some may pass judgment and wonder if she is just skeezing around. I can’t read her blog because I am unable to speak French, but her pictures say so much more. She is a classy woman who is artistic and definitely has no concerns about the Swine that is upon all of us. At least the girl has standards, these men are fairly good looking…from the side.

Source